What is the Flanker game?

A selective-attention challenge based on the classic Eriksen flanker task. A row of arrows appears and you report which way the middle one points while ignoring the distractor arrows around it. One wrong answer ends the streak.

Why do the other arrows matter if only the middle one counts?

Your visual system processes the whole row automatically. When the flankers point away from the centre they bias your response toward their direction · the well-documented flanker effect. Suppressing that bias is the entire exercise.

How do I get faster at it?

Fix your gaze on the centre position before the row lands and narrow your attention to a single arrow-width. Players who read the row edge-to-edge are the ones the flankers fool.

Yes. The row widens from three to seven arrows, incongruent rounds become the norm, and at high difficulty each flanker points its own way so the row never forms one readable block.

Do I need to read any language to play?

No · the row is arrows and the four answers are directions. The direction labels are translated into all 25 languages as a helper.

Flanker · 真ん中の矢印を見つけて · 日本語

A row of arrows crowds the screen · report where the middle one points and ignore the flock around it

Report the direction of the middle arrow while ignoring the arrows flanking it. JavaScript required.

Enable JavaScript to play.